From the Beneficent Spider
by soumanyon
Summary: Oneshot dealing with the sad whatifs. What if Shuichi's love finally overwhelmed even him?


**Disclaimer:** Not mine. 

**A/N:** A weird plot bunny that would not leave me alone one night turned into this monstrosity of a one-shot. It's weird, it's creepy, it's down-right frightening. It's out of character to the point of brutally murdering the canon. (See there? Yep, that's the canon's mangled and slowly decomposing corpse)

Read at your own risk and don't lecture if it seems impossible. Who knows.

**Warnings**: Angst, creepiness, tiny bit of lime, sap, OOC, shounen-ai, weird POVs...and allusions to a lot more.

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**From the Beneficent Spider**

**soumanyon**

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_-_

_"From the start, I didn't believe that things would change and wouldn't stay as is..."_

_-_

* * *

Shuichi cried a lot. 

Every time he fell and skinned a knee, every time he was late for lunch, every time Hiro refused to get him that one, last popsicle.

Every time Yuki had threatened to leave him, every time Yuki had actually gone through with it, and every time, each time, that Yuki found his way back, he cried.

Eventually, he learned to hold in his tears.

_-_

"I'm home!" Shuichi yelled cheerfully, breaking the peace of the silent house as he crashed his way in through the door, toeing off his shoes in the entranceway. Barely pausing to toss his jacket over the back of the couch, he crept stealthily on socked feet, looking for his lover. He'd even left work early to surprise Yuki.

"Yuu-ki!" he sang, slipping into the novelist's study where the blond was bent over his laptop, clacking away at the keys. Shuichi threw his arms around the man, slathering wet, sloppy kisses on the back of his neck, the only piece of skin he could reach but was only rewarded with a sound smack on the head.

Whining at the harsh treatment, Shuichi slumped to the ground, clutching at the top of his head, pink hair flopping over his face, "Yuki, it's my birthday!" he protested. When his lover didn't make any acknowledgement of him, he kneeled to tug at Yuki's sleeve, breaking the man's typing rhythm, "Didn't you hear me, Yuki?" he tried again, "It's my birthday!"

"Shut the fuck up." Yuki hissed and tore his arm away from Shuichi's grasp, returning to the laptop which his eyes had never left.

"But I'm 21!" Shuichi protested again; it was important to him.

"Good, there's American beer in the fridge." Eyes still on the computer screen, reading glasses reflecting the glare and hiding piercing golden eyes.

Shuichi had muttered about inconsiderate jerks before dejectedly giving up on the man. He took Yuki's advice, stocking up with a full six-pack from the fridge before sprawling out in front of the TV. He was knocked out and snoring by the time he finished his second can.

When Yuki left his study hours later, his lover was passed out uncomfortably on the couch. His gaze slid to the four remaining cans of beer the brat had left out--too warm to drink--before he headed to his bedroom to sleep. Shuichi was left to spend the rest of the night snoring away on the couch, adding cramped muscles to a hangover.

_-_

Although sometimes, it was still too much for the poor boy. Still, he'd rebound every time, springing back to his lover with even more vigor than before, determined to win his love.

It had almost crushed him when Yuki told him that he didn't and couldn't love him. It almost had. But the next day he was all smiles, tucking that little bit of knowledge deep into his heart, to peek at bit by bit when no one else was watching to see his hopeless, embittered tears.

Even the eternal optimist can lose his way every once in a while.

But he always found his way back.

_-_

"Yuki, yuki, yuki, yuki yuki yuki!" Shuichi chirped happily, skipping behind of his lover on one of their rare forays outside together. He dusted a handful of powdery snow from his shoulder, blowing it in Yuki's face with laughing eyes and an exclamation of "Happy New Year!"

Yuki reciprocated the gesture by snapping forward the next tree limb that he passed and letting it slap back against Shuichi's chest after he passed. The boy, caught unaware, was knocked into a mound of snow. He was likely to be completely frozen by the time they got back; and they weren't even on their way back yet. Yuki was still leading them to some yet unknown location.

"Yuki, where are we going?" Shuichi asked, pouting after the snow had melted and soaked through even his thick winter clothing, leaving him cold, clammy, and uncomfortable.

Yuki didn't feel the need to answer him, seeing as they were already there. He pointed to the small shed with a smirk at a confused Shuichi.

"What is…?" Shuichi started to ask as Yuki knocked aside a few overgrown tree branches and ducked in. He followed him inside, sneezing as the dust flew from their disturbance. The place didn't look like it'd been used in years.

"Wher—" Shuichi again began but didn't get to finish as he was knocked to the dusty ground by a strangely enthusiastic Yuki after he'd kicked the door shut. "Yuki, what are you--!" but his lips were covered and he let Yuki finish the kiss before continuing, although the warm fingers pulling at the zipper of his jacket were proving to be a distraction.

It clicked. "Yuki, no! Not here!" Shuichi protested, trying to fight his lover's hands with no use. His sweater was off as were his mittens. "It's too cold!" Shuichi whined as his bare skin was exposed to the cold air. Granted, it was better in the shed than outside but regardless, there was no heating nor insulation and his teeth were chattering.

Ignoring his protests except to toss Shuichi's coat on the ground under him, Yuki's mouth latched on to one already firm nipple, silencing Shuichi's protests. He'd known it was useless to fight when Yuki got into "sex mode" anyway. Soon, Shuichi was lost in the heat of their lovemaking and all coherent speech was forgotten.

It was only after the heat of the afterglow was cut short by a particularly strong breeze that rattled the shed and filtered in through all the tiny cracks that Shuichi began to shiver, sitting up and losing the skin to skin contact that had warmed him. How could Yuki stay so warm? Maybe because he wasn't naked.

Shuichi's coat was stuck under the sleeping body and Yuki was too heavy to push off, so Shuichi resigned himself to sitting and shivering in only his thin shirt--his sweater was serving as Yuki's pillow-- to wait for his lover to wake up on his own. Trying to wake him would be useless and he didn't want the repercussions that would come with manipulating Yuki's weak spot; his ass was sore enough.

It was almost nightfall before Yuki woke up and definitely dark by the time they made it out of the woods. Shuichi was almost crying by then. Not only did he have to trek through what felt like miles of dark, cold woods, he'd had to do so with an aching lower body and the knowledge that he'd missed the New Year's dinner he'd promised to attend at his parents' house. It had been years since he'd spent New Year's with them.

Bitterly, he wondered if Yuki had found out about the promise and only used the treat of the "walk" as a way to avoid going. Shuichi could hardly blame him, what with the gushing fangirliness that both his mother and sister oozed around the novelist but still, it hurt that it Yuki had used sex as an excuse. How was he supposed to explain that to his family?

By the time they finally got home, Shuichi was looking forward to a nice, warm bath to loosen up cold and sore muscles but before he could drag his frosted shoes off at the door, he heard the conspicuous click of the bathroom lock. With strength born of desperation, he ran to the closed door, beating on it.

"Yuki, let me in!" Shuichi screeched, wincing as pain from his slightly frostbitten fingertips shot up his fingers to his palms, his wrists, his forearms.

There was no answer from within but a minute later, water could be heard gushing from the shower and splashing onto hard tile.

"Yuki…" Shuichi called again but either his voice couldn't be heard over the water or Yuki simply chose to ignore him. Whichever it was, when Yuki finally left the bathroom, he passed Shuichi, fallen asleep propped against the wall. He paused for a second, staring down at the boy slowly crumpling to the ground before walking away, toweling his hair with a disinterested shrug.

_-_

But one day, something changed.

Something in Shuichi, some last shred of hope, of optimism in his young face broke and it was like releasing a floodgate. Everything crumbled: the years of trying, laboring and laboring to earn even the slightest bit of affection, resorting to even buying it from his lover.

One day, something cracked, and from there, it kept splitting through everything, halted by solid foundation as much as dust.

_-_

Shuichi sobbed it out over a bar counter with his best friend to pat his back sympathetically, but it wasn't enough. No one would ever be enough.

He cried, demanding to know in the naïve, unaccepting way of a child, why was love so hard? Was destiny supposed to be so difficult, that even years of effort had brought him scarcely a stone's throw from where he'd begun? Or maybe he was even farther back. Was it true, was love real, oh god, Hiro, what if it wasn't? What would he do then?

Beyond Yuki? Could he even comprehend such a statement? It seemed like a contradiction. There was nothing beyond Yuki, nothing that meant anything. Yuki was everything, Yuki was everything that was important in his life. That's what he assured himself, that's what he told himself. For some reason, Hiro looked concerned.

Shuichi reassured him. Hiro was still his best friend, but Yuki was his life, he understood that, didn't he? Didn't he understand that Shuichi loved him? Shuichi demanded an answer, damnit.

Hiro only nodded distractedly, his gaze on his friend becoming more and more concerned as the feverish look in Shuichi's eyes grew.

_-_

The next time Yuki left him, Shuichi broke.

_-_

He sobbingly refused to leave the apartment, choosing to cling to the couch and driving away anyone who tried to persuade him otherwise with screams and yells, throwing whatever he could reach at them. After they gave up trying to get him to someplace where someone could watch over him, the agreed location being Hiro's apartment, they tried to coax him to at least move to the bedroom, where he'd be more comfortable. Who knew how long it'd take for Yuki to come back, if he was coming back this time at all.

But Shuichi refused again, insisting that he wouldn't go in there, not without Yuki's permission. His place was the couch. The bed was Yuki's. He could go there sometimes. When? they'd ask. With Yuki's permission, he replied vehemently, not seeing the glances that passed between his friends.. And no, it didn't matter that Yuki wasn't home. He'd be back, he would. And he'd see that Shuichi was being a good boy, a very good boy while he'd been gone.

Yuki didn't return for six months. It nearly killed Shuichi.

The first month, he was stuck in firm denial, refusing to leave the couch except for necessities because Yuki knew he was there, he preferred it that he was there.

By the second month, they managed to pry Shuichi away so that he spent half his time on the porch, watching the road, and the other half on the couch.

The third month was when the tantrums started and his friends were glad at first. They seemed much more in character with the Shuichi that they knew than the moping and firm denial. They thought he was getting back to normal when the tantrums began to dissolve into crying bouts. Those scared everyone. Shuichi begged and pleaded for Yuki to come back, for someone to bring Yuki back to him. He begged the world and promised anything if only Yuki would return to him.

Hiro's worried gaze was cast on his friend more and more often as Shuichi's rambles lengthened and became more and more ludicrous.

It was only in the fifth month that he started to calm down, developing a calm antipathy that the was the norm until he saw a car turn into the drive of the apartment or heard the door clicking. The car was always someone else and the door was always Hiro. Everything else had stopped coming. Whether they were getting too disturbed by his love for Yuki or whether they'd just gotten tired of him, Shuichi didn't care. He didn't need them. All he needed was Yuki. His Yuki.

It was at the end of the fifth month that Shuichi had tried to commit suicide. It was covered up by Tohma, of course. That wasn't the type of publicity that Bad Luck needed after a five month hiatus but he reasonably demanded an explanation. When Shuichi had revived from his coma, he'd explained in broken, choked tones. It didn't seem like anything mattered, not without Yuki. Yuki was his life, and if Yuki left him, there was no reason to go on living.

Then he dissolved into what Hiro had seen all too often, this pathetic creature that was only a shadow of his best friend, clutching at Tohma's hand and straining at intravenous tubes, demanding, pleading, anything that the blond knew about where Yuki was. He promised things, things that he had no right to promise and things that sickened Hiro before he set his monitor alarms off after going into a hyperventilating fit.

Hiro had guided a shocked Tohma quietly out of the room. Neither could bear to see Shuichi like that anymore.

_-_

When Yuki finally returned, tiredly setting down a suitcase next to his slipped off shoes in the entranceway, it was quiet in his apartment. It was strange, he'd expected an enthusiastic greeting. A little disappointment trickled through him but not enough to quell his bubbling happiness. It had been a long time; a long, but necessary time. Yuki had needed to sort out everything in his head before returning.

The blond man paced through the rooms of the still apartment, ironically parodying Shuichi's own search on his 21st birthday. Whether it was a sudden striking of foresight or a lucky guess, he tried his study next and lo and behold, Shuichi was sitting on his chair, asleep in front of his laptop. A music composing software was on the screen; it seemed only half done.

Yuki clicked around, quickly figuring out the simplistic software—it had to be for Shuichi to use it—and managed to play the little song. It was gentle piano and quite lulling but had a deeper flow to it, some innate sadness not found in any other Bad Luck song. Yuki felt a smirk turning up the corners of his lips; it seemed the kid was getting better. But he was disappointed when the listened through a little more, only the bare melody, and realized there were no lyrics yet. Even if Shuichi's compositions were often simple and childish, his lyrics were always from the heart.

The sound of his song woke Shuichi up, who yawned and stretched, almost smacking Yuki's face and his arms stretched above his head. Yuki's chuckle alerted Shuichi to his presence and he stiffened more as Yuki bent to press a soft kiss on his cheek.

"Missed you." Yuki murmured against his soft skin and Shuichi was, for a moment, taken aback at Yuki's gentleness. Yuki was never gentle.

"W-where have y—" Shuichi began but was cut off with an eager kiss.

"Mmh—too long," Yuki whispered into his mouth, tongue gently probing into Shuichi's. The vocalist was dazed for a few moments, relishing Yuki's kiss after going without for so long. But then his senses, or at least the ones that his psychiatrist had been beating into him, kicked in.

"No." he protested, pushing Yuki while at the same time pushing himself back. But his progress was stopped by the work table while Yuki was sent stumbling into the kitchen. Yuki looked slightly dumbfounded, that Shuichi was protesting the kiss.

"No?" he echoed, curious of what exactly had gone on in his six-month absence. It was, of course, not the welcome he'd been expecting. He had missed his lover sorely and anticipated the same. So why was Shuichi protesting?

"My psychiatrist told me—" but that was as far as Shuichi got before he flinched as Yuki's sharp, piercing gaze was turned to him as he snapped in a tone more like his old self.

"Psychiatrist? Since when do you have a psychiatrist?" What the hell had happened in six months?

Shuichi took a deep breath, held it in for several counts, then let it out and repeated multiple times. This was what'd they'd worked the whole month on, setting up his new way of life. Yuki noticed it and was disturbed. It was the same technique his own psychiatrist had taught him.

"Yuki, I think…" God, it was infinitely harder to do this with the man facing him and hanging on his every word, "I think we should spend some time apart." He paused to let that sink in, for both himself and Yuki.

"I…I don't think our relationship i-is healthy." Shuichi stuttered, going over the lines that he'd been through thousands of times.

"We should take some time away from each other, see how it all works out."

But by then, Yuki had his answer,

"No."

"Yuki, I really think you sh—"

"No!" Yuki protested, "This is wrong, this is all wrong!" He seemed to actually be indecisive for a moment before he blurted it out, the simple phrase that Shuichi had been waiting to hear for so many years.

"I love you."

But whatever he'd been expecting, an armful of chibi or a puddle of mush, Shuichi became neither. Instead, sadness filled his eyes, reminiscent of that song and the bottom of Yuki's stomach dropped sickeningly.

"I love you," he repeated, turning away before steeling himself to look back, "I finally said it."

Shuichi nodded vehemently, smiling even while wiping away bitter tears and feeling his heart break for the countless time as the prone, innocent image of the person his lover had been long, long ago resurfaced in his expression, his voice. Whatever he'd done, wherever he'd gone in six months had affected him so much, wrought so much good in him. And…it was all while Shuichi hadn't been there.

"I know." Shuichi said, sliding his palm to cup Yuki's face and wiping away the tears that now flowed from the taller man's eyes, too. Yuki was confused, not understanding.

"I know," Shuichi repeated before repeating one of his meditating breaths, steeling himself for what he knew he had to do. He felt evil, heartless and hated himself. The tears came faster, "I know, but…it's too late."

Yuki was stunned; there was no reply to that, there couldn't be because it wasn't true.

"It's too late, Yuki. It's…" he bit his lip, "over. At least, for now." Shuichi finished, too ashamed to move his eyes from the floor. He suddenly missed the feelings his drugs had given him, the ones that the doctors and paramedics had taken away from him. They gave him such wonderful relief from all of that guilt that constantly plagued him about so ruining the life of the one he claimed to love.

But, closing his eyes, Shuichi firmly wrenched his thoughts away. His psychiatrist had told him that those weren't healthy thoughts. Hiro had reaffirmed that. And speaking of Hiro,

"I've already moved out, I was just waiting for you to get back."

Yuki noticed that he didn't refer to it as home anymore.

"I'm moving in with Hiro until I can find my own place."

He grinned weakly at Yuki,

"I can't keep eating you out of house and home forever, can I?"

With that, Shuichi clicked his laptop close, Yuki had barely gotten a glimpse of what was on the screen, not enough to tell what it was before the window was closed.

Shuichi rose and headed towards the door where, in his hurry to find the vocalist, Yuki hadn't even noticed a small, packed bag. Shuichi shouldered it easily, the last of his necessities left at Yuki's. Everything else had been moved over long ago.

Pausing at the open door, Shuichi turned around to stand on his tiptoes and give Yuki one last peck on the cheek. He wouldn't touch the man's lips, despite golden eyes begging him to.

"Good bye, Yuki." Shuichi murmured in his ear, before closing the door behind him and leaving Yuki in his darkened apartment, alone, as he headed towards the elevator. Only when the elevator door closed did he tip his head, pressing his forehead against cool, reflective metal.

Had it been the right choice? Yes, that's what everyone told him; his psychiatrist, his doctors, his friends, his boss, Hiro. But then why, why did he feel like the villain? Why did he feel like he killed his chance at happiness in life?

Shrugging it off as yet another unhealthy feeling to add to his psychiatrist's list, Shuichi headed down to his car, tossing his bag in the back before heading off to Hiro's to start his new life.

How could he have slighted Hiro so much in the years he'd spent with Yuki? After all, Hiro was his first love and still his best friend.

In fact, Hiro could always be counted on to indulge him in…anything. Shuichi's face lit up as he leaned on the gas pedal. He could test the limits of that love. Would it be stronger or weaker than the one between him and Yuki? There was no telling…until he tried. Oh yes, the future was definitely looking up.

At least he still had Hiro. He wouldn't be alone. He'd never be alone.

Ever.

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_- _

_"...so, I'll see how long this feeling lasts_

_It's like a wave; it's calm and then retreats.  
This heart was carried off."_

_- _

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end 


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